'It's been 2 months since Finn & Jake, Simon & Betty, and LSP fixed Ooo. A lot of people blame Bonnie and the others for everything that happened (I guess they never heard of Pim?), but at least they've been to keep everything under control since then. Well, they've managed not to go to war with anyone and they're all still alive. Still, there's been two failed coups against Flame Princess, a riot outside the entrance to Slime Kingdom, and Bonnie's been talking about a rebel movement in the Candy Kingdom. She says it's nothing dangerous and that she's known about it for months now, but I'll keep an eye out. I mean, I can survive pretty much anything, but if something happened to her… I don't know what I'd do.'

Sighing, Marceline puts her pencil's eraser in the corner of her mouth as she rereads what she's written in her journal. She begins doodling in the margins as she wonders what else to write, then quickly adds an addendum.

'Still, it's hard for me to look at her without hurting. I spilled my guts to her and told her how I really feel, and I actually managed to get her back… she told me that she felt the same way, and she kissed me! But then she got taken away (because why wouldn't she?), and now she doesn't remember any of it. It really hurts that we were so close, and now we're right back to where we were before. I can still remember, but I'm afraid to tell her again. Both times I thought we had a good chance, it ended up getting taken away. At least we're still talking this time.

I guess I'll just act like nothing's wrong and hope everything turns out fine. So, same as normal, right?'

Dropping her pencil and closing her journal, Marceline notices that she's almost all the way through her journal. Sighing, she looks through the window at the far side of her room. Outside the cave, she sees the long shadows of the setting sun. The Vampire Queen contemplates visiting Bonnibel. Before she can decide, she jumps as her phone on her bedside table vibrates.

She floats across the room and picks it up. There's three messages from Bubblegum.

B: Hey, just realized that we never got to do our guitar thing.
B: Mind if I come over tonight and we can play?
B: Or, ya know, I can probably make a fool of myself trying?

Marceline smiles and types her response.

M: dude its like 10pm.
M: dont u think its a little late 4 that?
B: Nah. It's been an easy day today, so I've been able to sleep in.
B: Besides, I feel bad that we didn't get to play before… you know.
M: alrite. come on down wen ur redy.
M: ill get the stuff out
B: Be there in a bit!

Floating off her bed, Marceline grabs her bass and the acoustic, then takes them downstairs. After half an hour, Bonnibel arrives, wearing her leather jacket over a dark t-shirt and jeans, and a bag on her back. The Vampire Queen watches through the window as she walks up to the door, then quickly opens it before she even knocks. "Hey Bonnie!" she exclaims.

"Uh, hey!" Bubblegum replies, surprised. "Were you just waiting behind the door for me to get here?"

Marceline shrugs. "I didn't have anything better to do. Didn't take long to get ready, ya know?"

"Yeah, I get it." The princess walks into the house and looks around with a smile. "It's been a too long since I've been in here."

"Hey, whatcha got in that bag?"

"Mostly snacks; chips, energy bars, soda. All the good stuff. I brought a couple notebooks, too."

Marceline notices that the bag is pretty much full to bursting. "Jeez, girl. How many snacks did you think you'd need? You could survive nuclear winter with this much stuff!" The princess giggles and shrugs. "Well, I guess you can make yourself at home. Mi casa es su casa."

Bonnibel takes off her bag and puts it on the floor next to Marceline's couch. "Since when could you speak Spanish?"

"That's pretty much all I know," she chuckles. "But, I do speak fluent French."

Her eyebrows raising, the princess looks on in surprise. "Really?"

"Vous le sais." Marceline floats around her friend, her hair spreading out like a crimson cloud. "C'est fou ce que tu apprendras dans mille ans."

Bonnibel laughs. "I've got no idea if you're actually Frenching right." As she says this, she blushes as she realizes what she'd said.

Marceline opens her mouth to tease her friend over the comment, an inappropriate kissing joke on the tip of her tongue. As she takes a breath, though, she flashes back to the kiss they'd shared in their final moments before they were both candified.

"Can you hear me? Marcy, what's wrong?!" Bonnibel cries out, looking at her friend with clearly visible worry. The Vampire Queen gets shaken out of her flashback with a jolt.

"Huh?"

"You kinda blanked out on me there." The princess nervously smiles. "You good?"

"Oh, yeah. I'm fine," Marceline responds, blushing and rubbing the back of her neck. "Just… still a little shaken up after the whole thing with Pim and the elements and… that whole mess. Ya know?"

"I get it," Bubblegum responds, looking somewhat relieved. "I think everyone's still kinda messed up from it." She sees a look of pain in her friend's eyes. "I'm sorry that I can't remember anything. Everything after Pim kidnapped me is just a blur, but if you ever wanna talk about it, I'm still willing to listen."

"No, I'm fine. I just need some time to sort everything out." The Vampire Queen lifts her two guitars up. "Now, we gonna play or what?"

With a smile, the princess graciously takes the acoustic. "Yeah. Let's do this." She follows Marceline to an empty spot on the floor, and the two sit down.

"Now, first things first, let's see if you know how to hold the guitar," the raven-haired woman teases. She watches as her friend pulls a slightly confused expression as she places the body of the guitar against her right leg and brings her right arm over it, while gently wrapping her left hand around the neck. Marceline smiles. "You got it. You'd actually be surprised how many people don't actually know how to hold a guitar."

Bonnibel chuckles. "Seriously?"

"I'm serious," the Vampire Queen responds, before returning to her lesson. "Most acoustics actually have six strings, but I prefer four. Just fits my style a bit better. The main reason most guitars use six is because it gives a better range of notes without having too many that it gets excessive. Most of them go E-A-D-G-B-E, but since mine's only got four, I usually just don't use the E's. Sometimes I'll restring it to give it more range, and some of my other basses have more string. But that's for another day."

Bonnibel nods and presses each string in sequence, from thickest to thinnest. "So this one's A?" Marceline nods. "Then D-G-B?" Again, her friend nods. "Okay. That doesn't seem that hard."

Over the next several hours, she teaches the princess the basics of playing guitar; fretting, proper string etiquette, and the like. By the time they take a break, it's already 2AM. "You're a fast learner, Peebles. You'll be ready for the stage in no time."

Bubblegum blushes and giggles. "Thanks, but I think you might be overestimating a bit."

"Come on, you're a natural! Besides, even if it turns out guitar isn't your thing, there's tons of other stuff that you can try. I mean, you can already play trumpet really well and it wouldn't be hard to fit that into a song."

"Well, I did actually bring something from home," the princess says as she walks to her bag.

"For real? Whatcha got?" She watches as her friend lifts a small black case, then opens it to reveal a flute. Her eyes widen and a grin appears on her face. "You can play flute? Dude, that's super cool! But… when'd you learn?"

"It was long time ago." She looks at Marceline with an amused glimmer in her rich green eyes. "Who'd you think taught Finn how to play?"

A look of understanding comes over the Vampire Queen, before she snorts. "But… didn't he suck at it for years?"

"Dude, I started teaching him when he was, like, 10. Besides, he wasn't really interested in playing, ya know? I mean, Jake loved that he was learning to play something, but Finn was more interested in… well, you know."

"Oh, right," Marceline chuckles. "That woulda been when he was super-crushing on you." She sighs. "It was pretty funny how obvious he was with it. And he thought nobody knew about it. Remember when I got him to, like, put wolves in your room and all that stuff?"

"Yeah, I remember." Bonnibel says with a scowl as she puts together her flute. "That wasn't funny, you know."

"Yeah, maybe the wolves themselves weren't that funny," she agrees. "But seeing how easily I got Finn to do it? That's what's funny about it. He was so desperate that he did whatever I told him." The Vampire Queen giggles as she remembers that night. "And Jake made him wear that stupid lute-suit-thing."

Bonnibel joins her in laughing. "I don't know, I kinda liked it."

"Really?" Marceline cocks an eyebrow with a teasing smile. "I seem to remember you laughing as soon as you saw it."

The princess shrugs as she finishes putting together her flute. She makes her way back over to where they had been practicing a few minutes earlier. "You know Black Satin Dancer?" she asks with a smile.

"Of course! You sure you wanna do that one, though? There's a lot of innuendo in there, you know." She smirks at her friend.

Bonnibel snorts. "I've had to listen to your jokes for 500 years, Marceline. I think that I can handle a little bit of innuendo. Besides, I've listened to the song a ton of times, and it's never bothered me at all."

"Well, in that case…" Marceline gestures to her friend. "It starts with flute. You take the lead."

"Gladly." She brings her flute up to her mouth and blows over the mouthpiece, quickly playing the intro to the song as her friend plays her part on bass.

"Come, let me play with you, black satin dancer. In all your giving, given is the answer…"

The next several hours are little more than a jam session. They finish their song and start playing through Bouree, but don't even get all the way through it before it gives way to the two simply playing music together without a real theme to go by, or even the slightest care as to how good it ends up sounding. They only stop around 2AM, when Marceline notices the princess yawning and having trouble handling her flute. "Hey," she says, "maybe you should get some sleep."

"Nah, I'm good. Let's keep—" Bonnibel gets interrupted mid-sentence by a deep yawn. As it ends, she giggles and tiredly looks at her half-undead friend. "I guess I could do with some rest."

She quickly puts away her flute, then Marceline scoops her up in her arms. "Come on up!" she says as she floats up to the upper floor, before playfully tossing her onto her bed. "You can have my bed for tonight. It's only fair, since you let me use yours for, like, three days straight."

Bonnibel smiles gratefully at her. "Thanks. But where are you going to sleep?" Marceline smirks at her, making the princess blush. "You're not gonna…?"

"Not gonna what?" the Vampire Queen teases as she floats towards the princess. "Not gonna share the bed with you?"

"Hey, if you wanna share, it's fine with me. Just make sure to keep your hands to yourself." Nonetheless, she still blushes deeply at the thought.

"Nah, it's fine. I don't even usually sleep on that thing, anyways. I'm just gonna be up here." She rolls over in the air, looking down at her friend as her hair forms a canopy overtop of them. "That way I can watch you."

Bonnibel giggles and blushes. "Hey, you know I don't like people watching me sleep."

"I'd like to see you stop me." She widens her eyes with a goofy grin on her face. "These peepers gonna peep."

"Stop!" Bonnibel laughs, bringing her hands up and trying to cover her friend's eyes. Marceline laughs as well and maneuvers herself around to avoid her gaze being blocked. She begins playfully swatting away her friend's hands, and soon enough they're playfully wrestling on the bed—or, in the Vampire Queen's case, above it.

Suddenly, when one swipe goes wide, Bonnibel catches her friend by the wrist and quickly pulls her from the air. She presses her face-down into the mattress and immediately climbs onto her back and pins her down. "Whatcha gonna do, Marcy?" she teases as she holds her friend down.

Pretty much unphased, Marceline laughs and says, "This!" as she quickly rises back into the air, now with the princess on her back. As she feels her unwilling passenger lose balance, the Vampire Queen maneuvers herself through the air and ends up reversing their positions, then plops her friend down, dropping her face-down into the bed. "How'd ya like that?" she taunts, pretending to dust off her hands.

"I don't know," Bonnibel responds as she glances over her shoulder with a cunning glimmer in her eye. "How do you like this?" She rolls over and wraps her legs around her friend's upper body, just below the arms, then quickly lifts her up in a complete, fluid arc and dropping her on the other side. Not missing a moment, she mounts Marceline's chest and grabs both of her forearms, pinning them down above her head.

As she pins down her friend on the bed, their eyes meet and a moment of awkward, still silence overcomes them. They both blush, but neither of them try to stop the predicament, either.

After what seems like an eternity, Marceline awkwardly chuckles. "So… interesting weather we've been having." Bonnibel laughs at the joke, doing with just as much awkwardness as the grey-skinned woman beneath her body. She releases her arms and quickly dismounts her friend, sitting beside her with a great deal of embarrassment.

"Uh, sorry about that," she nervously chuckles.

However, she only sees a look of admiration on her friend's face. "Dude! Where'd you learn to do that?!" Marceline pauses, then quickly adds, "The flippy bit, not straddling me. I know where you learned that one."

"I've been taking a few classes. After I got possessed by the Lich, I got really paranoid about something happening to me." Marceline eyes widen. "I actually did a lot because of it. Some of it was actually good in the long-run, like increasing the number of banana guards and making their training much stricter." She takes a breath. "But I also did some stuff that was… questionable. You probably noticed the sphinxes on one of the towers?"

Marceline nods. "Yeah. They're having an… eyeball duel, or something. It's kinda creepy."

"That's probably the biggest failure I had. I made the first one, Goliad, to be my heir if something were to happen to me. But she was incredibly unstable, dangerous even. She got all of my insecurities, but also all of my smarts, and she has mind-control powers. I had to make another one, Stormo, to stop her. He's actually made from Finn's DNA, and luckily he got his bravery and heroism and not some of his… other traits."

"Like what?" The two women make eye contact, then Marceline realizes what she's talking about. "Oh, right. I feel like it might've been bad if there were a bunch of tiny psycho-sphinxes running around."

"Yeah it would've. Anyways, I pretty much realized that the best way to keep myself safe was just to learn how to fight without any of my gadgets. I got so used to having my laser guns and my ball blam burglerber and all that stuff that I didn't could barely defend myself without them. So I decided to learn to fight without a weapon."

"Smart," the Vampire Queen says, raising one hand. "Shame you can't just do this." She causes long, jagged claws to form out of her fingers, then retracts them. "It makes fighting way easier."

"Maybe we could duel sometime," the princess proposes. "Then we could see if that's true."

"You just wanna make me stop flexing on you, don't you?"

Bonnibel smirks. "Maybe just a little bit." She then yawns, a deep and contagious one.

Marceline yawns as well, then says, "I guess we should probably get some sleep."

"Yeah… I guess."

Bonnibel rolls onto her side as Marceline levitates off the bed and turns off the lights, plunging the room into darkness. "G'night Peebs," she whispers.

The princess smiles warmly in the darkness. "Goodnight Marcy."

Later, long after the sun rises, Marceline is the first to awaken. She notices that, sometime during the previous night, she'd lowered onto the bed. Not only that, but Bonnibel had also unconsciously latched onto her in her sleep, one arm limply draped over her chest and the other one hand gently grabbing her arm. In spite of the mild confusion, the Vampire Queen can't help but smile as she looks at her friend's sleeping face.

This happiness only lasts a moment, however, for as she stares, the image of the gum-spire face flashes into her mind, prematurely ending her moment of bliss.

Shaking the thought from her head, she slowly moves Bonnibel's arms and tries to leave the bed. As the bed shifts, the princess groans in her sleep. "Come on, Bonnie," she whispers. "Marcy's gotta get up."

Once she frees herself from her friend's sleepy grasp, Marceline floats down the ladder and into the living room. She stretches her arms and cracks her back, then looks around the room. Her bass and acoustic are both leaned against the wall. Bonnibel's flute lies on the couch, while her bag is open and on its side just in front of it. Several wrappers and soda cans are scattered around the room, and the princess' jacket is discarded on the arm of the couch.

She quickly picks these up and throws them away, then opens up her fridge. Inside, almost everything is red, specifically for her to drink the color from; apples, tomatoes, strawberries… the list goes on. However, tucked away within the fridge, she keeps a bit of food in case of company.

Marceline grabs a case of eggs, bacon, milk, a variety of veggies, and an assortment of other ingredients, placing them all on the counter, before grabbing out her cooking equipment. She preheats her oven as she gets ready, then smiles. It's been a while since she's had a legitimate excuse to cook something.

She cooks for almost forty minutes, and a little before it finishes, she notices Bubblegum climb down the ladder in the living room. "Morning Marcy! What smells so good out here?"

"Breakfast," Marceline simply responds, turning around to face her while keeping an eye on the food in the oven.

"I could've guessed that," Bonnibel sighs. "But what's for breakfast, exactly?"

"You'll just have to wait for that, missy," the Vampire Queen teases. "It's almost done, anyways." She looks to the oven timer, which reads just over a minute left.

"Alright, I'll be patient. I know it'll be good." Bubblegum leans against the counter and sighs, taking in the scent of the cooking food.

Marceline chuckles. "This is my first time cooking anything in months, actually. I might be a little out of practice." The oven beeps, then she dons her baker's mitts and removes a muffin pan full of food from inside.

As she raises it up, her friend's eyes light up. "You made those little bacon-and-egg muffins?" she gasps. "I love those!"

"Well, I made 'em just for you." Marceline places the pan on the counter and removes her gloves, then goes about gingerly moving the muffins from the pan to a plate while Bonnibel watches over her shoulder, salivating. "Hey, you don't need to wait for me to get them all out," she laughs. "Just be careful. They're hot." Ignoring this, the princess immediately grabs one of them and takes a bite, closing her eyes and slowly chewing it up, savoring the taste. "So?"

Bonnibel swallows the bite and beams. "Dude, this is so good!" She takes another bite, digging into the muffin..

This makes the Vampire Queen laugh. "Well, there's plenty more where that came from." She watches as her friend devours her food, and in a matter of moments, half of them have disappeared, but the princess has also slowed down

Finishing her ninth one, she leans back against the counter and sighs. "I missed your cooking so much."

"Well, I miss cooking in general." Marceline smiles as she comes up with a not-so-devious scheme. "How'd you feel if I were to come up to your place every so often and cook for you? I could even teach you some of my recipes."

"Is that even a question?" Bonnibel jokes. "If I could eat your food every day, I don't think I'd need anything else to be happy. I'm surprised you haven't set up a restaurant or something."

She simply shrugs. "Too much work. Also, I'd need to deal with people to do that, and me plus people is a bad combination."

"What about your concerts? Tons of people come to those, and there aren't usually any problems."

"Well, I'm not actually dealing with people then. Like, I'm playing music for them, yeah, but I don't really need to, like, talk to them. Besides, music's my passion, so it makes it a bit easier."

The princess shrugs. "I guess that makes sense. But I can see where you're coming from. I've gotta deal with people all day, pretty much every day, and it's exhausting."

The two simply hang out and chat for a short while, before Bonnibel grabs her bag and decides that she should get back to her kingdom. "I probably shouldn't be gone for too long before everything calms down."

"Alright. I'll take ya back, if you want."

Bonnibel starts climbing up the ladder to the upper floor, her bag over one shoulder as she heads towards the bathroom. "You don't need to do that, Marcy."

"I know, but I don't have anything planned. Besides, you came down here to hang, it's the least I could do."

She sees her friend smile at her before she gets onto the top floor. With a smirk, she whispers to herself, "I hate to watch her go, but I love to watch her leave." After a moment, she begins cleaning up her kitchen, putting away the food and filling up the sink with hot, soapy water to let the dirty dishes soak. Marceline puts the remaining plate of muffins into a plastic container for Bonnibel to take home.

By the time the princess comes back down, the kitchen is once more spotless. Marceline's also changed her clothes, putting on a hoodie and some gloves for the journey.

"So, ready to head out?" she asks as she sees Bonnibel come down, her face and hair cleaned up and in a new change of clothes—likely another thing that she'd packed in her bag.

"Yeah. Let's go." She grabs her jacket and puts it on as Marceline hands her the remaining muffins, then the two leave the caves and begin making their way across the plains. The Vampire Queen decides to go the entire way on foot, rather than flying.

Midway through the walk, Bonnibel gets a message and pulls out her phone. "Who ya talking to?" Marceline asks. "Should I be jealous?"

"Nah, it's just Flame Princess. I've been asking her and Cinnamon Bun for permission to do some experiments. I've been wondering if CB's heightened mental state was a physical change or a genetic one. Ya know, if a clone of CB would be like the current one or like he used to be."

"Oh, that's pretty cool," Marceline responds. "So, still wanna do a show with me?"

Bonnibel grins. "Yeah! I had a lot of fun last night. I'm not sure how long it'll take before I'm good enough to actually go on-stage, though."

"You'll be ready in no time." She shrugs. "Besides, if you're not confident on guitar, then you can always do flute and we can do some Tull covers."

"I'd like that," the princess responds with a smile. "Also, then I wouldn't be competing with Keila for guitar."

"Like I said, lots of bands have had two guitarists. As long as you both have your own styles, it should be fine." Marceline pauses. "I'm only asking because I've actually gotten the date for my Hamburger Hills."

"It took this long?"

"Yeah. The elemental stuff really screwed everything up. I've been tearing my hair out trying to make sure that they didn't just cancel it."

"Well, when is it? I'll come if I'm not busy, but I'll probably be pretty loaded for a while, since everyone needs someone to blame for everything going crazy and I'm…" She sighs. "I'm unfortunately in that position."

"It's next month, on the twenty third."

Bonnibel groans. "Agh, that's when I'm meeting with Slime Princess and Flame Princess to talk about our response. We're thinking that if all three of us can respond together and throw in a few gifts and trade deals, then we can finally calm this down." She looks to her friend. "That's, like, the one thing I can't miss."

"I understand," Marceline says somewhat sadly. "Well, I've already got my entire show planned out, so at least I won't need to change anything." Her face brightens as she has an idea. "Hey, what if I got somebody to set up some cameras? I could record the show and send you a copy. "

"You'd do that?"

"Yeah, as long as I can find someone willing to set them up. Besides, there's always fans who'll sneak in cameras and just put up the show online, so you should be able to find it without too much trouble." A mischievous grin rises onto her face. "I might even slip an extra song into my routine for you… but you've gotta guess which one it is."

Bonnibel giggles. "Two questions. First, are you gonna try to embarrass me with it? And second, is it going to be something I've heard before?"

"Maybe to both. It's a cover, but if you read into the song you might get a little perturbed. For the second, I dunno. Doesn't seem like your kind of music, but who knows?" The princess giggles again. "Hey, what's so funny?"

"I just didn't expect to her you use the word 'perturbed,' much less use it correctly."

"I can use whatever words I like! Besides, this is all assuming that you can actually see the show and that you guess the right song."

The two continue on their way, chatting and joking together. Once they get close to the kingdom, Marceline notices that something's wrong: there's a shape moving up the castle wall, clearly headed for her friend's bedroom window. "Hey, Bonnie. Something on your wall," she says, pointing to it.

The princess quickly sees it, too. "What are they doing?"

"I don't know, "she says while turning invisible. "But I know how to find out." Quickly flying over the outer wall and buildings, she closes the distance in a matter of seconds as Bonnibel runs through the streets far behind and beneath her.

The figure wears a hooded cloak and appears to be short and somewhat round beneath it, yet also flat. She grabs the figure by the arms and pulls them off with little difficulty, and is surprised at how light they are. They struggle in her grasp, but with little chance of actually freeing themself. Their hood falls off in their flailing, revealing them to be leaf-like in appearance.

She uncloaks and brings the figure down to the ground, holding them in front of the princess. "A leaflan?!" Bonnibel gasps. After an annoyed grunt, she tells her friend, "Take him to the guards. I'm gonna interrogate him later and find out what this is all about."

Once the leafy intruder is taken away, Bonnibel sighs. "Would you mind staying here for the day? Just… turn invisible or something and make sure nobody else tries to get in here or, like, attack me?"

"Yeah, I can be a counter-stalker for ya."

For the remainder of the day, Marceline remains at the princess' side, invisibly watching for any threats. However, none present themselves. The day is mostly made up of her friend entering various meetings with representatives from various kingdoms, almost all of which demanding recompensation for damages potentially caused by the elemental stuff. In one particularly boring meeting, she actually dozes off, reliving something from only six months prior.